A Memory of Nothing
by Decadent Muffin
Summary: Every person's memories give them their motivations and desires. Light Yagami is no different; they are the reason he is Kira. Yet sometimes a single, insignificant moment can be enough to send a meticulously-built world of cards crashing to the ground.


Disclaimer: I do not own the story of Death Note as written by Tsugumi Ohba and as illustrated by Takeshi Obata.

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**Dusk – Nightmare**

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_No matter how far he runs across the blood-spattered ground, he can never get away. Monsters in black pursue him through the forest of metal trees, taking aim at his head, trying to kill him. People fall around him dead, one-two-three, nothing more than wisps of smoke as they hit the ground. A noise and he trips, gets up again, runs. The monsters reach for him as a roaring fills his ears and his heart hammers in his chest, forcing him to run faster and faster or else they'll murder him-_

"Aaaaaagh! Aaah! Hhh - Aaah!"

_-all around, small children crying for dead friends, dead parents, dead everything, everything is dead and it's never ever coming back, never never never. Screams echo around the landscape as the monsters fall on another person who wails and shrieks and bleeds and dissolves because they're never coming back, once they get you you will disappear forever and ever and no one will ever see you again- _

L nearly dropped his laptop at the sound. Light was screaming, so much so that he thought for a moment the boy was actually in pain. But no, there was no such occurrence. Reaching over to the teen writhing under the bedcovers, L managed to grab his shoulder after a few unsuccessful attempts and shook roughly, trying to wake him up.

_-no, he doesn't want to disappear, he wants to be seen, wants to see, so he runs and runs but the branches of the trees around him grab at him with evil fingers made of cold and slow him down. He can't run fast, he should be able to run faster than this, why can't he run any faster than this? The monsters are coming, they're coming for him, and there they are ahead of him, so he wheels around and shoots off to the side, but they're over there too- _

"Light-kun!" he called, as the boy continued to shriek and convulse, eyes still closed. "Light-kun! You are having a nightmare! Wake up!"

_-they're there and there and everywhere, he's surrounded and then they start to reach for him, they want to kill him no no no! A hole opens in the ground and he falls down, the monsters jump at him, fall with him-_

Finally, the teen bolted upright, eyes wide and breath ragged as yet another scream died mutely in his throat. L, who at this point had a hold on both of

Light's shoulders, tried to talk to him.

_-grabbing-_

"Light-kun," he said, trying unsuccessfully to get the teen to raise his bowed head and look at him. "What is it? What did you dream about? Was it-"

_-roaring-_

His sentence was cut off abruptly as Light's head snapped up, staring straight through him as though he wasn't there. The pupils in his eyes had contracted as far as humanly possible. Another scream ripped itself from Light's throat as his hands fastened onto the sides of L's head and thrust the detective away from him.

_-fighting-_

L had no time to recover his facilities as his back impacted with the bedcovers. Light followed him in one fluid motion, going from sitting up to sitting on L's abdomen. Instinctively he shoved at Light's chest, but this only resulted in another scream as Light's fingers wrapped themselves around his neck, not squeezing, as L would have expected, but scratching, with thankfully little success. L launched a punch at Light's face and succeeded in making contact with the teen's cheek, sending the suspect reeling backwards.

_-hurting-_

Imitating Light's previous actions, the detective moved forwards to try to pin him down, only to be rewarded by a scratch across the cheek from Light. Eyes narrowing at the most recent affront, L grabbed both of Light's wrists as his hands flew towards him and forced them down, seating himself high on Light's chest so the teen wouldn't be able to throw him off.

_-killing him-_

A gasp came from Light, who had been doing nothing but screaming throughout the whole experience. The pupils suddenly dilated back to their normal size, and Light spoke. "L-L?" he stuttered. "W-what happened?"

L had to hold back a mocking laugh at that. "What happened?" he repeated back. "Well, you only attacked me with clear intent to harm. Let's see, that's approximately a 78.643% chance added on to your previous Kira percentage, which I think brings the whole thing up to 87.143%-"

Light cut off L's mandatory analysis, eyes widening slightly again but with a distinct lack of disconcertingly contracted pupils. "N-No, that's wrong! I know what happened and why, okay?" He closed his eyes, breathing through his nose for a few seconds. "It has absolutely no bearing on how much you think I might be Kira."

L blinked. "Oh? Than what explanation do you propose for such behavior?"

"Let me up, and I'll tell you all the gory details."

"Gory details?" asked L, though he did as Light requested. "Whatever does Light-kun mean? Is that a literal detail, or merely a figure of speech?"

Light brushed his disheveled bangs out of his eyes and glared at L. "Figure of speech, Ryuzaki. Figure of speech. There was no killing involved, whatever you might be thinking."

"Well, let's hear it then."

Light groaned under his breath, so low that the detective barely managed to catch it. L gazed at Light questioningly, silently urging the other to continue with his explanation, or else the handcuffs were not going to be on just one wrist. Light quickly got the hint and began to speak.

"Well," he said. "I... sometimes have night terrors. Like the one you apparently just witnessed."

L allowed himself to frown. "Night terrors? Children do often suffer from those, but shouldn't you have outgrown them at this age?"

Light grimaced. "Possibly," he said. "I started having them when I was 5. They've definitely slowed down since I was young, but they still happened occasionally." Lowering his head slightly, he muttered something under his breath. "And here I thought I had really stopped having them this time..."

"This time?" queried L.

"This is the first one I've had in about a year and a half. I thought they might be gone for good, but apparently there's no such luck. I had a similar false hope the year I started middle school."

L nibbled on a thumbnail. "Do you normally attack people after waking up?"

Light looked at him deadpan for a moment before lowering his eyes and speaking. "... Actually, yes."

"Do you know why?" asked L.

"No."

"It's a symptom that occurs every time?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever see a doctor about this condition?" asked L after a moment of silence. "If you have had them since you were a child until the present, there's a possibility that you have a genetic disposition for parasomniac disorders-"

Light sighed. "Ryuzaki, there is no history whatsoever in my family of such things."

"...Oh."

"I know. I just accepted the fact that I was going to have them for seemingly no reason after my own research on the subject."

"...Indeed," said L. The conversation was losing his attention; he was much more in the mood for a midnight slice of double chocolate cake.

"So," said Light, unaware that L was only half listening, "There's no reason to raise my Kira percentage because of an affliction I've had since I was 5, 12 years before he appeared."

"Of course, of course..." murmured L, chewing on his thumb absently. "You know, Light-kun, I feel like having a slice of cake right now, and since we are both awake, there should be no problem with going to the kitchen."

"Oh, no," groaned Light under his breath. "Are you using this as an excuse to deprive me of yet more necessary sleep?"

"If Light-kun is not asleep, he will not be in danger of having another night terror, and I will get my cake. It seems like a fair deal."

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**After-Story Notes:** _Parasomniac Disorder_ - To quote Wikipedia, these are "a category of sleep disorders that involve abnormal and unnatural movements, behaviors, emotions, perceptions, and dreams that occur while falling asleep, sleeping, between sleep stages, or arousal from sleep." This includes night terrors, as Light is seen experiencing above.

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A/N: ... And there we go. I finally got around to putting it up. -breathes deeply- In case you couldn't tell, the above takes place during the arc in which Light has lost his memories and is handcuffed to L 24/7.

The rest of the story will mostly have Light cast as the central story-teller, but I intend to have other POVs scattered here and there. Unfortunately, despite the fact that this is now posted, it may be a while yet before I post the next chapter. Be assured, they are on average much longer than this one, at least as far as the ones I have written up. Think of this as an introductory chapter.

Now that you have been fairly warned as to my forecast of irregular updating, please click the button down there with a speech bubble on it. You know you want to. Now I must post this and go to bed, since it's almost tomorrow where I am.


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